The popularity of the Internet has caused the emergence and increased use of network-accessible devices in all locations. Users now access and employ multiple devices wherever they go. As a result, small office, home/residential networks have become complex and grown in the number of client devices serviced.
A typical home network comprises a modem interfacing an Internet Service Provider (“ISP”) and a router. Commonly, this router also provides a wireless access point. In many homes, a wide variety of client devices are connected to the router, such as personal computers, printers, laptop computers, tablets, and smart phones. These devices may utilize any number of traffic services, such as video streaming, voice over IP, data uploads or downloads, web browsing, etc. These traffic services have different characteristics need to be serviced with different priorities to ensure an optimal quality of service (“QOS”). Therefore, a router in a home network must handle a complex and mixed traffic environment.
Although many home network routers ostensibly provide QOS features, these known products are difficult to configure and still provide poor QOS. Unfortunately, conventional home network routers have limited capabilities and processing, which limit their ability to provide adequate QOS features. It would be desirable to provide a router, especially for a home network or local area network that can easily provide QOS.